from http://thepoetproject.tumblr.com/
Humble the Poet is a Toronto-based hip-hop artist, writer, creative, and elementary school teacher. His mission is to normalize the image of the beard and turban through his output, rapping and writing about life in Toronto, his worldview, and philosophy of Sikhism. He recently released a book titled UnLearn, which is a series of reflections and pieces of advice on how to live life with a healthier mind. Humble, as of last week, began a companion #UnLearn series on YouTube in which he shares his thoughts in short videos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2artYPiSuA
I’ve twice met humble during my time in Toronto, first at his birthday party at a bar in Little Italy (every YouTuber I hadn’t met yet was there), and second when he came to Parminder’s house to plan a social media campaign (I’ll talk about that when the pilot video is released). He’s soft-spoken and thoughtful and bears a tattoo of the Punjab region on his neck. His friends find it odd that he has established himself to go by Humble when they all know them as Kanwer Singh.
The UnLearn project is founded on the premise that one can never stop learning — a quintessentially Sikh notion. The word “Sikh” is derived from the Punjabi verb “to learn,” and one of the duties of a Sikh is to always seek knowledge (I’m sure that play on words existed in some capacity when the religion was founded). Humble’s chapters and points don’t all necessarily resonate with Sikh scripture, those his basic philosophies of never fear and never hate are taken straight from the mool mantar. His aim in this book is not to spread Sikhi but to share basic moral values and a thirst for knowledge that the faith would encourage.
I didn’t get the chance to ask Humble why he chose hip-hop over bhangra, though his video explaining the UnLearn project gives a pretty clear idea — normalizing an image requires taking it through the mainstream. Hip-hop is a universal genre of music, the art form that, regardless of locale, gives a voice to the poor, the youth, the rebellious, and the socially progressive.
“Global hip-hop has emerged as a culture that encourages and integrates innovative practices of artistic expression, knowledge production, social identification, and political mobilization. In these respects, it transcends and contests conventional constructions of identity, race, nation, community, aesthetics, and knowledge.” — from “Hip-Hop & the Global Imprint of a Black Cultural Form” by Marcyliena Morgan and Dionne Bennett
Properly discussing Humble’s hip-hop career would require a separate project on Toronto’s hip-hop scene and the rise of Punjabi hip-hop. Punjab’s dance music exists primarily in bhangra, a genre that has seen the growth of rapping within its mainstream and more recently influence from EDM. Every Punjabi wedding reception, banquet hall gathering, or backyard birthday party you will ever attend will involve bhangra in some capacity, often with DJs whose subwoofers are so powerful they make the fabric of reality tremble. Punjabis have also delved into hip-hop independently of bhangra, turning to the more ubiquitous genre to share a message with a broader audience. Humble’s music tackles issues of race and class in Toronto and perceptions of Sikhism, using hip-hop as a vessel for communicating with a potentially non-Sikh audience. None of his songs that I’ve heard have been particularly explicit — provocative and controversial, yes, but not offensive for no reason or blatantly misogynistic. He preaches positivity and acceptance, avoiding the tropes of “f*** b****es, get money” to maintain a sense of artistic integrity.
I would love to get the chance to connect with Humble the Poet again. He is a deeply thoughtful and kind person with a very promising career ahead of him.
Works Cited
[1] Marcyliena Morgan and Dionne Bennett, “Hip-Hop & the Global Imprint of a Black Cultural Form,” Daedalus Vol. 140, No. 2 (Spring 2011), http://www.jstor.org/stable/23047460, pp. 179-196.